Great Swan Memoir

Great Swan Peace Cathedral

Memoir:

The vision that has fallen from my hands.

As if in the light of nameless stars procreating new worlds, I stand awestruck and unknown to myself. Overcome by the vision before me that manifested through my own hands, even my senses are muted, diminished  to a mere whiff of other worldly incense, whispers of chanting, and the enigmatic, long, hushed toiling of a single bell, seemingly far, far away.

In this lull of time, I stand before Great Swan Peace Cathedral  pondering reality as I know it and wondering,  “How could this have come to be?”, even as my memory tells me the long story well with many words of our familiar language. Yet the feeling of endless not-knowing persists. My mind gives way to stillness and my heart flows out like the sea to mingle with the sky. The magnum opus of my life, Great Swan Peace Cathedral and I merge.

Although I share this memoir from recall, all the while mystery subjugates my mind in the magnitude of great silence and unknowing that has become a deep luxury in the final years of my life and was essential in bringing so much to fruition. But how did it all happen?

Early Signs

There were clear signs early on.  As a 3 year old, I was already laying out and arranging my hoard of rocks collected on the nearby railroad tracks and shells from trips to the sea, imagining what beauty I would make someday that would be the work of my adult life. At age 7, after a very minor trauma made me consider the short life I had lived, a conclusion came that has stuck with me my whole life: “There are better places to be. I must take care of business in this life so I don’t have to return to this world.” 

At age 10 looking out the window in 4th grade, summing up what I had seen of adult life as not meaningful nor tolerable, I knew I would require an uncommon life. I noticed as a young teen that I was passing out of my childhood connection with spiritual depth, forgetting it, as boys began to fascinate me. I wrote a poem, “The Shoals of the Mind”, likely colored by early religious exposure, and already missing what I no longer recall.

Adult Awakening

In 1965, splitting up with my first sweetheart, my hyper agitated mind was recycling the break up script. It was intolerable. Nature beckoned. It had become my temple and refuge very early on. So, with backpack and Greyhound ticket, I was eagerly off to the wilds above Yosemite Valley alone and in search of relief. Days of plodding trails through alpine grandeur, amid the rushing songs of quaking aspens and pristine rivulets of snow melt, the incessant circles of my mind prevailed. But at long last, descending from the high country just as a vast panorama was opening up before me on a switch-back trail, suddenly my mind fell away completely into silence! In that shock of stillness and balm of peace, unknowing made its dramatic dawn upon my consciousness. 

As the years passed, the incidences of mindless not-knowing steadily grew.

I would look back at my house in wonderment when driving away, at my shoes the same. It happened steadily more and I liked that feeling, as thinking paused in a wordless mystery. It allowed more peace, more enjoyment.

Then completely unexpectedly a brief but profound spiritual awakening occurred that cemented my path in life. It was 1967 and I was a mere 21 year old, laying on my bed deeply immersed in love. My young beloved husband, Loren Stolley was working night-shift as a precision machinist in town. While I lay in the dark contemplating the fullness of my heart, my experience was shifting in odd ways. First I realized I was in love with no person at all, but rather with Love itself. Suddenly I was flying into infinite living Light, that was all LOVE. A slew of images were rushing past my mind’s eye. These were like stills of an old time movie in which I saw myself in many lives, long ago, seated at the foot of forgotten masters. In each case I was looking up and worshiping that one as God….. And then only the Light of LOVE remained

There was an instant recognition of the Light as my True Self and the True Self of all beings. And beyond that, “I” was completely GONE, self forgotten in the immense Love-Light. How long “I” was paused that way, I have no idea, but eventually, I became self-conscious again. The Light was swiftly departing down a long dark tunnel. And I was pursuing it, passionately determined to hold on, to not lose the Light. I was begging it to let me give my life to serve it. 

And then the first vision of my life appeared. The Light transformed into an image within a square shape against a dark background. There stood a great ceremonial gate being held open by attendants on either side. A garden of shimmering blues and greens inside the gates summoned my heart and it spoke; “This is my heart’s HOME! I must go there”. But there was darkness between myself and that scintillating other world. And I felt that if I were to enter that huge gate then, I might never return to my body.

Instantly I was back as I recalled my body with my heart  pounding in astonishment. This experience was beyond anything I could have imagined or even desired. It changed my orientation forever. I wanted to serve the Light above all lights with my whole being always and only. I immediately began to search for ways to do this. 

Years later I learned that such an experience was called a “Samadhi”. The great gate was named “7th Gate”, a ceremonial entrance to the temple home of the Teacher that would guide, grow, and profoundly test me in this life. He would hone my various abilities, especially art, but also critical thinking, dedication and the will to persist in my submission to the edicts of the Light though all the trials of life, and there have been many.

Inspiration and Artistry

In my twenty first year,  Loren’s wonderful abilities were now supporting me and I was at long last ready to discover how I could create beauty with my now very large hoard of collected rocks, shells and interesting oddities. I was experimenting with many kinds of art mediums, including bending wire into very primitive  earrings. A couple of small local art shows allowed me to join in and offer for sale my many early art experiments. Such shows were a completely new kind of happening back then. The sales proved that my very primitive jewelry, beyond all the other mediums tried, would be the way I could help support an unusual life while developing as an artist. 

It wasn’t long before I was able to make a simple spiral earring of silver wire representing the Love-Light with rays of flattened silver dangling freely, like the Light falling down upon all. I wept for joy that I had found a way to create a reminder of the Light. I was overjoyed with the knowledge, “I will serve the Light creating beauty!” Destiny was unfolding.

Dream of the Master – 1974

I opened a door while dreaming, and there standing with his arms wide open waiting for me was a short, round man, in his mid 30’s and obviously American.  My heart instantly announced this was my Teacher! His face was not familiar, but his embrace swooned me away beyond any ordinary sense of myself and reality.  We became a ball of cosmic male and female forces, rolling as one through countless doors. I understood I was being given a tour of conditional reality, but there was no interest in even noticing anything but the profound depth of Love conveyed by his embrace. I had in my arms all I could possibly desire. Eventually we were back in our bodies sitting in an important chair together. I was to his left. Then a great and wonderful energy above my head washed powerfully down over and through my body, pressing itself into my hands as if to bless them. But looking out into the room, I began to wonder what was happening there with a little apprehension and I instantly awoke. (end of dream).

Upon waking up, I was completely mystified that I had a Teacher in the dream state. How could that be? It would be wonderful if it were true, but I chalked it all up to the craziness of dreams.

Finding the Master 

As it turned out, there was indeed a Teacher, waiting to draw me into a spiritual relationship with him. It seemed he had been with me already for some years! He was the American born master, Adi Da Samraj, whom I found in late 1976; or did he find me? The yogic/spiritual embrace he drew me into one day when I was alone in our old trailer in the Santa Barbara mountains, led to my all out search for a TRUE TEACHER. It was a taste of profound spiritual PASSION, rarely shared. (Read “Yogic Embrace” under “stories”)

I was able to see my spiritual Teacher in the flesh for the first time 3 years later after years of repeated efforts, trying everything from a distance to get here. But it required complete determination and willingness to give up all to come into his company. I finally saw him the first time in 1979, the greatest day of my life. It was far beyond imaginable. (see “Day of the Heart” under “stories”). 

In my determination to be in Adi Da’s company, Loren and I moved to the rich, sublime, and peaceful 190 acres of Dandelion Ballad. The day before our first search began for land where we could live not far from Adi Da, I received a psychically transmitted “calling” that would further guide me the rest of my life to give my all to serve the Light above all lights, and my Teacher, “giving everything and I have and can do” while also serving the highest good in all. The personally delivered first calling led to a 15 year ordeal of intense testing that grew me greatly. (see “First Calling” under “stories”).

I received 2 more callings in writing after this; first, that I make large art. This inspired the outpouring of trail art for Dandelion that continues to this day. I realized with the 2nd calling I had not given my full art capacity to serve, and in so doing the trails of Dandelion would be transformed. The last calling was that I do large metal sculptures. This calling came in 1999 and I resisted for nearly a year, because I considered myself a jeweler who worked small (sort of). My little ego preferences were getting in the way. But it is traditionally known that it is wise to fulfill even the most casual suggestions from a great Teacher. In so doing I was given a transforming experience that prepared me to receive the vision of Great Swan Peace Cathedral. (you may read “Birth of Spires” under “stories”)

(For those interested in reading more about my years with Adi Da Samraj before he passed, 1979 to 2008, see “Life with the Master” in “stories”).

But I will summarize those here because of their vital part in the story of Great Swan Peace Cathedral.

The years with a Teacher grew me steadily in my will and capacity to serve the Light. He guided and tested me profoundly, preparing me for the clarity, commitment, dedication and intense labor of love Great Swan would require.

The Vision and spoken words

Two years later, after more than a decade of severe insomnia and 5 consecutive sleepless days and nights, I knew I was nearing death. The feeling was of falling through infinity, while receiving the command to always stand with the Light no matter what came. On the fifth day I was  incapacitated and begged my husband to do something!  Loren went to his men’s group and cried. A friend gave him a hand full of a new drug and told Loren, “THESE will make her sleep!” 

It was over this palm full of pills I offered the prayer; “If there is something more I need to do for the Light before I die, please make it known to me”. Then I downed the pile of pills all at once, not even questioning what they were. They were my only hope.

I passed out immediately and awoke again 3 hours later. In that first moment of conscious awareness, a magnificent vision dawned before me of a most exquisite temple adorned and dripping with metal art and lingering long before my mind’s eye, piercing my being with ecstasy. Simultaneously these most consequential words were spoken ever so very slowly; ”P e a c e….C a t h e d r a l”, transmitting directly into my heart, the knowledge that this temple would serve World Peace for all.

That dazzling, orphic jewel of a temple, with astonishing power and beauty hoved with etheric grace before me. It was a swan of incomprehensible elegance, exquisite beyond imagination and utterly alluring.

The temple structure was a dome surrounded with dripping arches of richly adorned wrought iron that cascaded over the circular path immediately conjoining the dome. It stood amid a sea of worshipful forms, crescendoing to a forest of intricate spires shooting high into the sky from the crown of the dome.

The vision was an absolute hair-rising, spiritual thrill that flowed into my being like immortal nectar, with its own requisition for birthing into this world. And I surrendered in exaltation, agreeing to do its bidding. 

I had no idea how the temple would serve World Peace but it was apparent that I would live and had a great deal of challenging labor ahead. I hoped I would get help and I was positively eager to begin. (Read how another artist was told to allow visions from Adi Da in her work with him. See Allowing Visions in “stories”).

The Means to stay alive comes

It took some months to get strong enough to begin work again, because there seemed no way to achieve normal sleep. I continued my welded art jewelry for the support of Dandelion Ballad, cooked and guided volunteers, while we searched for a technique to build the vision temple.

Years later at the end of 2013, having by then found the way to build the dome, I requested a Blessing for a safe dome construction from my master, who had departed in 2008, but was still very much alive spiritually. I miraculously received on that day from an acquaintance, word of what was likely causing my terrible, enduring insomnia and what I could do to actually SLEEP and stay alive to create the temple. It proved to be true and I began to sleep vastly better and grow steadily stronger. (read about what I discovered was my issue and how I stayed alive, under “Gene Issue” in “stories”). 

But back 10 years in 2003 the insomnia continued. Drugs were only barely effective and had their own dreadful symptoms. I learned to live on 10 minutes to  ½ hr. per night with plenty of sleepless nights thrown in and began to weld the metal art for the path around the temple anyway.

But the technical means to create the temple dome remained elusive for 10 more years. I had much else at that time to do, like supporting Dandelion with my art jewelry work, developing still more sustainable understanding through working the land and plants on Dandelion, and other service work.

Building Great Swan

At last in late 2013 a neighbor discovered a dome home being built in our area and thus the technical information required to begin the dome for Great Swan Peace Cathedral was finally found. The company, Monolithic Domes, makes an “air-form” that is blown up like a balloon and then cement, with rebar support is laid on the inside surface to create domes of all sizes and shapes while the balloon air-form is held up all the while with air pressure, until thickness and cement cure are sufficient to safely shut down the air pressure .

It was a very dangerous process and I was terrified someone could die during it.  That is why I requested a Blessing that gave such amazing help. We ordered our airform, designed by Loren and set the date for the big moment of the cement construction work for November 2013. As it turned out, Oscar Duckworth, the man everyone recommended as the best on the west coast for the shotcrete work (shooting cement through a tube) was unavailable. He had told me he wanted to do the work, but after the Blessing he told me he was unavailable on those dates that had been Blessed! This could not stand. I got off the phone and simply turned it spiritually over to the Light. A couple days later, Oscar called me and asked, “How did you do it?”…I wondered what. He said, only on the rarest of occasions did he ever have a cancellation, but he had received 2 cancellations in a row on the very days I had wanted. So he was freed to help! 

Oscar treated Great Swan Peace Cathedral with utter respect from that point on, even though it was only a balloon until he had done his part. Amazingly, Oscar also got unexpectedly called away the weekend before his work on Great Swan, to meet with dome related specialists from around the country to determine who was responsible for a multi million dollar dome collapse. His work had been shotcrete construction of wine caves in Napa California. He had never done a dome before, but learned everything essential for safe construction of domes at this weekend insurance meeting. 

When Oscar arrived on Dandelion Ballad, he took over the dome construction  completely, saying others that had brought it to this point could continue to help, but he would make all the critical decisions. He thus likely averted tragedy. And Great Swan took one MAJOR step further from what seemed a heaven realm in vision, to our earth world here on Dandelion Ballad.

Honoring the spirit of Great Swan 

With a dome at long last ready to lavishly embellish, I dove into welding with joy. The work I had done in 2003 was a good start that provided a perfect learning experience. I had welded 13 very similar small arches around the temple path and mastered welding techniques in the process. Now in 2014, I began the largest arches of the temple. These were 10 foot high by 5 feet wide arches to drop from the dome over the conjoining path. There was a missing element on these. I didn’t have a broad enough outer metal band to make these arches stand out against the sky as a strong visual statement. 

Fortunately Loren, who constantly searched 2nd hand sources for everything, found a source for the much needed huge recycled fiber optic wheels I finally used by cutting and bending  to shape for better arches off the dome. The fiberoptic wheels were free to me.  This was a huge boon because there was plenty for the all parts of the temple that needed this visual accent. I completely remade the first 8 huge arches to greatly enhance them. They became much finer triple arches, with lavish details. For me it was essential I give my utter best to fully honor the spirit of Great Swan Peace Cathedral. 

Much later in the adorning of the inside of Great Swan with high stained glass windows, I again learned on a first set that took months to make. And to me they simply were not good enough. Eventually I came up with a  greatly improved design and once again went through the many months of detailed labor creating the windows, finally satisfied I had done my best.

By 2020 I had completed most of the metal art for the temple and Loren had done most of his installation work with the parts. It was time to create the Bell Tower! We worked together all summer in the welding shop, a full welding season. It was the only time I had the great joy of working directly together creating a very significant part of the temple with Loren. He was a wonderful worker with endless skills and patience. I loved working with him but he was aging. 

Losing my beloved collaborator, husband

In 2021 as I dreamed of another tower, Loren told me the sad fact that he was not up to doing another big project. He was now 84 years old and beginning to slow down. I told him I would not push him. He should do only what he wished to do. He had given so much of his life to hard work in service along with me. He was a true hero in my eyes and I simply adored him for all he had given to me and to the world, without any honor to himself. He was so humble. Our 54 years together had been a time of much human growing and happy collaboration.

That year he stuck to the basic needs of Dandelion, continuing to keep all the fruit trees, grapes, berries, gardens and landscaping alive by tending their watering and the irrigation system needs, fixing broken stuff as always, along with his usual shopping, laundry and many other ways he freed me to make art. He was a truly amazing artist’s dream husband.

On Oct.1 2021, Loren was a little slow and taking it extra easy. I saw him resting in his car while doing automatic watering as I tended the garden in the central Dandelion Ballad area not far from the temple. We said good bye there as I went into the temple to chant a while and he drove by towards home to take a nap before dinner.

A couple hours later I called to Loren that dinner was ready. There was no response. Fear arose. I went to his room. He wasn’t there. My fear surged. I grabbed the largest flashlight and headed up the hill on foot, calling and searching everywhere. I had noticed the frequent thought of losing him for a few weeks. “Are you still alive?” had crossed my mind several times. Now I feared the worst.

I made it up to the temple and found the gate from that area closed but the car door open, waiting outside the gate. And there was Loren, where he had fallen and was now laying still on the ground. “Are you dead, my love?” I spoke to him as I touched his cold rigid body. I tried mouth to mouth resuscitation, just in case. But it was very obvious he was gone. In fact my first sense of him laying there, was that body had never been him at all. He was the spirit that lived him…the great spirit of Light and Love and the body was just a decaying left over now.

The shock of loss kept me awake all night, praying by his side for an easy transition from this world to the next. In the midst of this I was grateful for his sake that he did not have to endure a long slow and suffering decline, but that death had been quick and apparently easy. He had always had a heart arrhythmia that could bring death at any time. This was likely the culprit, although he had recently gone through a bout of Covid.

As they took his body away in a bag the next morning, I wondered how I would live without him and all of his amazing help. I did my best to bless and allow Loren to be free without me clinging, holding on and possibly disturbing his full transition to his future that would be completely unknowable to me. I kissed him good-bye in my heart.

Only once after 3 years has Loren visited me from “the other side”. As I sat in a deeply relaxed state at the computer one day, he suddenly appeared  beside me. I looked up at him, beautiful, bright and younger, smiling down at me. We hugged. I said to him in great surprise, “Where have you been, my love?” I thought you were”……..But before I could speak the word “dead”, he was gone. I was thrilled to have that little visitation from my dear, dear Loren.

Living my highest alone

I centered my living still more fully in service to the Light, to keep my attention on what was meaningful and joyful to me. And I exercised the pleasure of being mindless, intensifying my surrender to unknowing that had deepened over the years, and always allowed what was best to manifest without the interference of an agitated mind.

Only once or twice during that first Christmas season, did I feel lonely, like a puppy dog left beside the road without its beloved master, missing the man of my life of so many years. But those moments passed quickly. I was grateful not to be tortured by sorrow or loneliness.

Often irrigation would require my strolling down an archetypal dirt road to the corner well to turn it off or on. It was always like a story book road…the one less traveled, that felt like a portend, quiet and peaceful but full of latent possibility, where I pondered and paused the mind in silent unknowing. Its ruts were straight, only slightly diverging here and there through the  fields of green or golden hue, lined with apple, walnut and quaking cottonwood trees, sun falling warm on my face. This walk became my favorite time of surrendering the mind to Love alone, trusting, letting go of the need to know, embracing the beauty of life, all alone now, happy and intentionally free of concern. 

Day after day, I found new ways of living, filling as best I could the empty gap of Loren’s huge help. Neighbors allowed me to hire them for the next fire season prep work and days alone passed in peace while I created more art that would not require Loren’s help, even to take it to the galvanizer, a day’s trip away. This art would be full of fun new color and design experiments that could  grace the paths and relaxing stops along the trails of Dandelion Ballad. 

After 10 months alone, much of the infrastructure of Dandelion was in need of serious help. I had been increasingly camping out inside, as the house water stopped flowing and I lived out of buckets filled with rain water instead. A shovel with toilet paper went with me to the great doors and many trees for bathroom needs. And I simply was required to go without more and more, refusing to be concerned, trusting as I had learned to do, the Light above all lights to provide whatever my life really required as a blessed gift to me from beyond.

Another collaborator

Then one day, out of the blue the thought came: “I should find another collaborator to help here”. The next thought was: “Where should I begin the search?”……I could only think of one person. A 69 year old man in Canada had wanted to be a volunteer on Dandelion before Loren’s passing. We connected via email. He had some art experience and other practical skills I surmised. Although I generally did phone interviews for volunteers, I missed this one. Loren caught the call and approved him to come, but his daughter fell sick and needed his help and we all forgot about each other. 

Although I knew almost nothing about him, I sent an email off to Joseph William Harvey, telling him that I had lost my husband and was now seeking a collaborator for this 190 acre service project. I made it clear I was not seeking romance. He responded he might be interested, but was not closed to the possibility of romance. He said he would call.

The romance question loomed large in my mind. While I described Great Swan Peace Cathedral and my service to the Light above all lights here on Dandelion Ballad on the phone with him, Will said his eyes were filling with tears and it would be very meaningful to him to be able to help me, as there was nothing particularly purposeful in his life then. He planned to fly down and check out the situation on his next break from work driving a bus load of men to and from the oil fields of Canada.

What ensued was to me a most amazing, prodigious and lusty episode in my life, so utterly unexpected and beyond anything I could have foreseen. As Will swept me off my feet, I was falling madly in love, recognizing Will’s broad capacity to help finish Great Swan Peace Cathedral and save Dandelion Ballad from becoming unlivable. I was utterly thrilled. This was a total miracle to me. He was a god-send and his deep desire for intimacy was an opportunity to live human love late in life with a fabulous fullness beyond anything I had known before. My capacity for love had grown greatly for 55 years since Loren had won my heart and it was ready to flower again with the maddening overwhelming passion of first love, but so late in life! (read “Love Late in Life” in “stories”)

Sadly, Will suffered suicidal depressions. He did save Dandelion from complete decay so I have been able to continue my life and work here. And he accomplished the installation of the last metal parts on the dome of Great Swan Peace Cathedral. He finished the inside of the dome, plastering and painting, installing the chandelier and big stained glass windows I had made, finishing the floor, guiding the landscaping, etc, etc. What would I have done without Will?

Then one night in his arms fore knowledge of my loss of Will suddenly sent a painful shock through me. I had no idea how, but that unreasonable knowing was very clear.  I wanted to curl up in a ball and cry. I told him and he tried to console me, but I couldn’t sleep that night at all. Then I forgot. But Will’s depressions deepened and one day while I was talking on the phone with a girlfriend, unaware of him, Will scribbled a note and drove away leaving everything he owned except his tooth brush bag. He was gone out of my life forever, even possibly out of life altogether.

Alone again

I had never before loved with the depth of mature love I shared with Will, that came after so many years of growing with Loren and  also growing spiritually with the help of a great Teacher. So I had also never suffered the pain of loss so deeply before either. I was shocked with pain by the suddenness of his departure without explanation or good bye. The pain and sorrow were powerful, as the love had been, yet I also knew a depth that was never touched by such human pain. 

As I walked the peaceful dirt road again to the corner well, and also worked in my welding shop long hours making art, which has always been a time of meditation on love, I noticed a deep shift occurring. Seemingly effortlessly my awareness was dropping mental activity much more, I was noticing the bondage of thought, how it creates the illusion of a self, the “me” feeling inside the body. And how the future was being created in limitation unnecessarily by thought patterning. Penetrating discernment of what I was doing to perpetuate illusions, and a growing ability to simply let go of self into mindless unknowing and unlimited love was just happening. I treasured the time alone to do this and express unbridled love through creating more parts for Great Swan Peace Cathedral and trail art too, for experimentation, development of techniques and creative fun. Life alone was now WONDERFUL.

Three months after Will drove out of my life much of the pain of loss had been transmuted into spontaneous ecstasy and freedom greater than I had known before. This change and growth seemed like a gift from beyond. Was I getting close to death and prepared for that transition? Or was I being groomed to help others as Great Swan was nearing readiness to serve in the world? I had no idea why these changes were happening.

My life is not my own, it is a gift to what is Greater. I simply trust that. Then one day I felt a huge wash of spirit force that purged Will from my psyche, and along with that cleansing I also felt another man on his way. The next day I got a phone call from Bruce Kristal, a man friend I had known for at least 30 years. He was looking for a girlfriend. This appeared to be another god-send to me. Bruce had skills that were needed, as if precisely chosen for the moment. He was warm and nurturing, challenging at times but also delightful.

The time with Will had indeed provided the opportunity to grow more. I had discovered the spontaneous availability of ecstasy in mere mindless  LOVE Itself. No man was needed. Romance had proved a sham. No one was needed to enjoy the most profound, spontaneous happiness and love. 

I enjoy profundity alone or share it with anyone who can open their heart to me in a moment. I have no desire for a man. And Bruce was able to go with me to ecstasy. So began a most unusual, unique friendship of human love, companionship, spirit, and service together.

To live a life dedicated to serving and loving the Light takes much help and preparation. Letting go of obstructing habits takes time and self awareness, wisdom and the ability to make the highest choices for self and others.

I was incredibly fortunate to be given so much in this life. I feel I have what my Teacher called “a Burden of Light”. I owe my life, everything I have and can do to serve the Light above all lights and the highest good for all.

Everyone has their patterns that must be out grown. I am still in this process too. But the results of a lifetime of dedication have passed from constant ordeal into much ease and deep enjoyment of sublimity. I have gifts to share with others now, not in any teaching capacity, but just kind and human sharing gained from insite, wisdom, and self transcendence.

Great Swan Peace Contributions 

It is now time for Great Swan Peace Cathedral to become known, so that it can fulfill its purpose of serving World Peace for all. I do not know how this will unfold. In stillness and not knowing, I open my being to guidance by what is Ultimate and beyond all limits. I look for signs that may point a way forward to serve World Peace and grow the future here. 

Of the few who have visited Great Swan several have been inspired and wanted to also offer their gifts here. One woman leaned over to me in the silence of our time in the Temple together and asked if she could sing there. As I nodded “YES!” happily, her gloriously trained voice rose in an exalted Sufi prayer song and then another. Outside again, she asked if she could bring her full size harp to play there. What a fabulous thought! Another young lady wanted to dance around Great Swan and her sweetheart recorded it with his phone camera. So began Great Swan Peace Contributions.

I began to dream of others offering their gifts as contributions to World Peace in and around Great Swan, uplifting and inspiring others to serve the highest good for all by sharing their personal creativity and talents here. Events of many sorts along these lines would be offered. They could be humble and sweet, or even black tie events for the highest cultural contributions. There would be  offerings of many sorts;  poetry, ballet, oration, acting, etc,etc, etc. Some could come to be immersed in the aura of upliftment,  while others would entwin spirit with soulful performances to draw hearts up in brightness, making their contribution for PEACE. The idea is flowering.  

Everyone, to me, is a spiritual being with their own unique personal relationship with what is Ultimate and beyond all words. I enjoy discovering these unique ways people in their deepest places, (but sometimes not altogether conscious), know and enjoy what is most profound. This has become increasingly more central and important in my experience with others. I am compelled to gently serve the highest good in each and all, encouraging the gifts of that deepest place in each person to be enjoyed more and shared with others. So I seek the means to communicate and share with all what is most wonderful beyond all limiting words and thoughts…to share our highest realities and to create processes for Peace in the world this way.

“Be the change you want to see in the world”

This is a quote attributed to Gandhi. It is how things work as I have observed relative to much, like love, joy and happiness. You must really love to know love, practice being peaceful, to know peace, etc, etc. This makes a unique approach to World Peace possible here on Dandelion Ballad and at Great Swan Peace Cathedral. Giving of self for the sake of others or all, in small and large ways, draws others to offer their higher self qualities, inspires others to “take the high road”, while the world appears to be going darker and the low road seems to grow attractive or the only option.

No. It is essential to take the “high road” and encourage others, attract others to the happiness grown by higher intentions and actions. Each of our little lights can grow if exercised. Join me as I give what is left of my life in this way. Help me call all to choices each can make on the small scale, and join with us and others to grow the Light for essential Happiness and Peace for all on the grand scale.